Check outthe exhibitin Denmark

Why do people go to museums to see dinosaurs? I guess to see something that no longer lives on Earth and is pretty impressive to look at even if it’s just the bones.

There’s also the mystery that surrounds the disappearance of dinosaurs and leaves us wondering why something so big and large could go extinct.

So it is with that in mind that I encourage you to see a living “dinosaur” in person this weekend in Denmark.

I wonder if people will ever think the same way about men’s fastpitch softball. At one it point it was so big and large and then a big meteor hit the Earth and wiped out Eddie Feigner. Sorry, I guess that was the dinosaurs.

But will future generations wander onto ghost diamonds and wonder what had once taken place here. The Jaycee Field in Sturgeon Bay comes to mind.

I’ve written about the demise of the men’s fastpitch game before and speculated on some reasons and it wasn’t only because Feigner died almost 10 years ago. Some of you are asking yourself, who’s Eddie Feigner? “The King” was a big “dinosaur” who roamed the country, even across Door County on a couple of occasions, showcasing his remarkable pitching arm.

But the music was dying long before Eddie passed away.

The timing of this column is twofold. First, the Fourth of July weekend was once a celebration of men’s fastpitch softball in Sturgeon Bay with it hosting one of the largest tournaments in the area. The Jaycee Field was built to help accommodate this crush of tournament teams from throughout Northeastern Wisconsin with the residual effect of handling the local softball boom of the seventies and eighties.

I can’t help passing through another Fourth of July observance without thinking about those great tournaments and what happened to them not only right here in Sturgeon Bay but throughout the country.

I grew up playing fastpitch softball and played here. In fairly large numbers, local residents followed the games. It was a group that included past generations of players who contributed to the game’s rich legacy in the area.

So with that in mind I’m seriously considering a trip to Denmark this weekend to attend the Boys of Summer tournament at Circle Tap that runs Friday through Sunday. It’s one of those rare opportunities to not only see some fastpitch softball but also see it played at its highest level. It is considered to be one of the country’s top tournaments but if you go, be prepared to hear a few Australian accents and a Canadian inflection or two.

Importing players to some of America’s top teams has been going on for quite a few years but it represents the problem we’re having in this country to keep men’s fastpitch softball from moving off the endangered list to the critically endangered roster.

What’s also appealing about the Circle Tap tournament is how it has clung to the earliest vestiges of the game. Like the volleyball courts you see today set up behind bars, softball has its roots in the fields behind rural taverns. I played many games within an easy toss of a watering hole.

While my sincerest hope is that the women’s game continues to flourish with the help of interscholastic and intercollegiate play, the men’s game is becoming a museum piece and who knows how much longer it will be on exhibit in Denmark.

Jon Gast writes a weekly sports column for the Advocate. He can be reached by email at jsgast@gmail.com